Israel’s war in Gaza has led to a 41% fall in births in the territory and high numbers of maternal deaths, miscarriages, newborn mortality and premature births, two reports on the impact of the conflict on pregnant women, babies and maternity care reveal.
Two reports by Physicians for Human Rights, in collaboration with the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI) document how the war has led to high figures for maternal and neonatal mortality and forced births in dangerous conditions and systematically dismantled health services – consequences of “a deliberate intention of preventing births among Palestinians, meeting the legal criteria of the genocide convention,” researchers said.
Building on PHRI’s earlier findings, the reports place women’s testimonies alongside health data and field reports, documenting “2,600 miscarriages, 220 pregnancy-related deaths, 1,460 premature births, over 1,700 underweight newborns, and over 2,500 infants requiring neonatal intensive care,” between January and June 2025.
Lama Bakri, of PHRI, said: “These figures represent a shocking deterioration from prewar ‘normalcy’ and are the direct result of war trauma, starvation, displacement and the collapse of maternal healthcare.”
Gaza’s health system has been systematically dismantled since October 2023. Israeli military operations have repeatedly struck hospitals, ambulances and medical staff, while siege conditions and sustained bombardment have cut supply lines and restricted movement between facilities, accelerating the wider collapse of public health in the territory.
Israel maintains that Hamas has used hospitals to shelter its fighters, but such claims have not been supported by clear evidence.
As a result, mothers in Gaza are forced into unthinkable choices, routinely compromising their own health and survival to meet their children’s most basic needs. With maternal and newborn care dismantled by fuel shortages, blocked medical supplies, mass displacement and relentless bombardment, life in overcrowded tent encampments has become the only remaining option.
“These conditions endanger both mothers and their unborn babies, newborns, and breastfed infants, and will have consequences for generations, permanently altering families,” writes Bakri, a psychologist and project manager at PHRI.
UN Women estimates that more than 6,000 mothers were killed in the first six months of the war, an average of two every hour. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an estimated 150,000 pregnant women and nursing mothers have been forcibly displaced, while Palestinian health ministry data shows 391 women have undergone upper or lower limb amputation since 7 October, out of 4,500 total cases. In the first months of 2025 there were 17,000 recorded births, a 41% drop from the same period in 2022.
“Beyond the numbers, what emerges in this report are the women themselves, their voices, choices and lived realities, confronting impossible dilemmas that statistics alone cannot fully capture,” writes Bakri.
Masara Khamis al-Sakahfi, 32, from Rafah, said: “I was shocked when I found out I was pregnant. During the pregnancy, I suffered greatly; I spent more time in hospitals than in the camp. I experienced severe pain and infections and there was a shortage of vitamins and food … I suffered a lot; contractions would start and then suddenly stop due to fear of the airstrikes. I would freeze and the contractions would stop.”
Sarah al-Daour, a 26-year-old mother of three from Jabalia who has a heart condition, was at al-Shifa hospital on 7 October 2023, where she was admitted after giving birth while suffering from an infection. Her newborn daughter was placed in the neonatal unit.
After being discharged, al-Daour returned to her parents’ home on the outskirts of Beit Lahia, where relatives had to carry her into the house because she was unable to walk. Her condition later worsened and she was taken back to hospital, where she underwent further surgery.
She was subsequently evacuated under gunfire and shelling to her late sister-in-law’s home in al-Fakhoura. Her sister-in-law, Aya Naif al-Mashrafi, a nurse at al-Awda hospital who had cared for her, was killed along with her children and 35 other members of the family.
“It was very difficult,” al-Daour said. “I suffered greatly each time we were forced to relocate because of my medical condition.”
The report sheds light not only on the killing of women and newborns but on what it describes as an alleged intent to erode the Palestinian people demographically, through attacks aimed at dismantling their ability to reproduce as a community.
In particular, researchers examined Israel’s December 2023 strike on al-Basma IVF clinic, Gaza’s largest fertility centre, which destroyed an estimated 5,000 reproductive specimens and brought to a halt between 70 and 100 IVF procedures a month.
The independent international commission of inquiry concluded that the attack was deliberate and that it directly targeted Palestinians’ reproductive potential, marking what the report characterises as a grave violation of international law.
A UN commission has cited the impact on the right to reproductive health as one of the reasons for declaring Israel’s actions a genocide.
“Reproductive violence constitutes a violation under international law; when carried out systematically and with them intent to destroy, it falls within the definition of genocide of the genocide convention,” reads the report. “The destruction of maternal care in Gaza reflects the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinian people, in whole or in part.”
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment before publication. After publication, the Israel Defense Forces said it “condemns the allegations raised. They do not reflect the reality on the ground and are not based on facts.”
Its statement added: “The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target women, in contrast to the Hamas terrorist organisation, which murdered, raped and abducted women during the 7 October attack.”
It said the IDF and Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry unit that controls access to Gaza, “has worked to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including medical aid in general and aid for women and maternity care in particular” throughout the war.
The IDF cast doubt on the figures in the report and claimed: “The IDF is committed to mitigating civilian harm during operational activity.”
Meanwhile in Gaza, despite the ceasefire that came into force last October, children continue to die. A Unicef spokesperson, James Elder, said more than 100 children had been killed in the enclave since the ceasefire. “We’ve now gone to six children who died of hypothermia just this winter,” Elder said.
Life in Gaza remains precarious. While airstrikes and gunfire have slowed, they have not ceased. At the same time, recent storms have compounded the crisis, causing deaths and flooding in displacement camps already stretched beyond their limits.
Strong winter winds collapsed walls on to flimsy tents for displaced Palestinians on Tuesday, killing at least four people. The dead were two women, a girl and a man, said officials at al-Shifa hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies. The Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.
